Hello friends:
I have been listening quietly to the discussion of the NFB
research group over a month. I find this very interesting and
actually this kind of telecommunication is the whole new world to
me. I am a computer instructor at the International Program of
the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
I am originally from Thailand. This summer I plan to work on a
special project for Thai speech access system for the blind. I
would like to ask you all for suggestions to see if I am moving
to the right direction or not.
This project will be organized by four of us who are all blind.
The remaining three people are in Thailand and will be
corresponding with me regularly; The report that I got from
Thailand is that there is a speech synthesizer in Thai language
which is invented by a professor in a university there. I do not
know if this is a card or an external synthesizer and the
intention of this professor at the beginning. But I do not think
that the professor had the need of the blind in mind. I was told
that the sound is quite clear. I need to try to get the professor
to cooperate with us and let us use the Thai synthesizer for our
purpose some how. Any features that I should try to get the
professor to add to the Thai synthesizer so that it would work
quickly and effectively for the blind please let me know.
I am thinking about talking to a screen review program vendor in
the states for the possibility of modifying the current version
of their program to drive the Thai synthesizer and still have the
English synthesizer working at the same time. Since all Thai
characters use extended ASCII code I think the program would just
have to make the distinction whether lower or upper characters
are being sent to the screen and direct those characters to the
appropraite synthesizer. I use Vocal eyes with the Synphonix
card. Others in Thailand now use Accent, Synphonix card,
Doubletalk external, and Dectalk. I am thinking about asking Dug
to help modifying Vocal eyes for this project. I am not really
sure if I am going to get any software vendors to be interested
to help because the potential market for making profit here is
probably not that much and everybody is quite busy competing for
the Windows access version right now.
If not then we would have to think about developing our own tsr
program which would go in front of vocal eyes. This program
would then distinguish between lower and upper ASCII code and
send them to either vocal eyes or the thai synthesizer. If it's
English then vocal eyes would take care of the access issue. If
it's Thai then our program would probably need to provide some
review features as well as passing the text on to the Thai
synthesizer. Personally I think another tsr program would not
make the whole speech system run that efficiently. I still wish
for the committment from the software vendor here to help
modify their programs.
I am also looking for any lead on the possibility of getting some
funding for this project. My friends in Thailand are approaching
the funding issue over there as well. However, if anybody knows
of any grant possibilities that would match this project please
let me know. I am basically looking for something to cover
programming cost (whether paying the vendor or an outside
programmer), something to cover phone calls and corresponding
expenses, and may be some traveling expenses if it's really
necessary. If I could get paid a little for organizing and
coordinating it would be nice but my conviction in seeing this
project comes true is quite enough to keep working on it.
Regardless of funding suggestions, I am very interested in
suggestions from anyone about the project as the whole and
what is the best way to make the idea of having Thai speech
access system for the blind become a reality. Thank you for your
attention.
Wiraman Niyomphol
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